Sweet Child of Mine
by Emma Winchester 424
Summary: A/U- Sam and Dean are on a case they can't solve. What happens when help drops out of the sky- literally? Who is this kid, and how does she seem to know everything about the boys? What does this mean for the future of the Winchesters? Part 3 (the final chapter) is up! * A/U, daughterfic!
1. Chapter 1

**_Sweet Child Of Mine_**

 ** _by Emma Winchester 424_**

 **Well howdy Supernatural Fandom! This is my first go at fanfiction, so please be kind. We're all friends here, right? :)**

 **Special thanks and a 1967 Chevy Impala to Jenmm31. Without her support, encouragement, and downright awesomeness, I never would have had the courage to publish. Please go check out her amazing sisfic stories, Growing Up, Winchester Style, and One Day at a Time. And then check out absolutely everything else she's ever written, because she's amazing. THANK YOU JENMM31!**

 **Well, here goes! Please read and review, but above all else, enjoy!**

 **A/N- AU. For the purposes of this story, it takes place during a time when Sam and Dean are getting along, no major obstacles in their way, everything is sailing smoothly.**

 **Dean- 32**

 **Sam- 28**

 **Rated for Language, because, you know, Dean.**

Go time was over. Way over. Desperation Time had officially kicked in, and it was already kicking some ass.

The young girl looked down at her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She didn't want to look up at the other being in the room. None of this seemed real, but they both knew it was _too_ real. She sat in silence for so long, the other one finally cleared his throat. She let out a small sigh as an indication that she knew her time was up.

"Have you made your choice?" he whispered.

"Y-yes. Yes I have," she whispered back.

"You know the risk that comes with this."

"I know."

"And you know what's going to happen to you when this is all over."

"Don't remind me."

"And you still want to go through with this?" he asked cautiously. She raised her head and looked him straight in the eye. Immediately, he knew what her answer was. He had seen that particular look too many times not to know what it meant. She was serious.

"I have to. I have to end this. This is what we do."

"Very well then." He took a deep breath. Not only was there an extreme amount of risk for the girl, he himself wasn't going to be in great shape when their actions were discovered. He shook off the negative thoughts and steeled himself. The girl was right. They had to do something before it was too late. He didn't want to think it was already too late. _Please don't be already too late-_ he prayed desperately _._ He looked at her, determination in his eyes.

"Alright then. Come here." She stood up and walked over to him. "Do you have everything you might need?"

She patted her pockets. "Fake IDs, the right money, no cell, no car keys."

"And do you have everything I hope to God you don't need?"

She gave him a little snort and a sideways grin. He couldn't help but grin back- she looked so much like her father when she did that. She reached behind her back and pulled out her favorite silver .45 to show him. "I also have silver bullets, rock salt bullets, holy water, and my bulls-eyes."

"That's a ridiculous name for them, you know that, right?" he said, no humor in his voice.

She shrugged. "Hey, when I don't make a bulls-eye with one of them, I'll change the name." He rolled his eyes. She just gave him a smirk back. His face grew serious.

"You need to remember that you cannot tell them anything that will change the course of their lives beyond this one act. If you do, there is no telling what you'll be coming back to. You can only tell them things that won't affect their future decisions."

"What if I accidentally mess up and tell them something I'm not supposed to?"

"I'll be keeping an eye on you-" The girl began to speak, but he held up his hand to stop her. "-from a distance. I'll make sure the conversation doesn't continue."

She snorted. "I can only imagine what kind of hocus pocus you're going to come up with to do that. How long do I have?"

He clenched his jaw, knowing she wasn't going to like the answer. "3 days." He was right.

"3 days?! Are you freaking kidding me?!" she shrieked. A sudden rustling from the room next door made her snap her mouth shut. They both didn't dare to move a muscle for a solid minute. When they felt it was safe, they exhaled sighs of relief. He turned to her, his eyes full of reproach.

"You almost blew it," he admonished.

"Yeah, yeah," she said dismissively. She took a deep breath. "You'll come get me in exactly 3 days in the same location you drop me off in, right?"

"That's right," he said. She gave a short nod. "What time is it?"

He looked at his watch. "Seven a.m."

"Well, no time like the present, right?" she asked cheekily, pleased at herself with her terrible pun.

He glared at her- apparently he did not share her amusement. "Not funny."

"It's a little funny."

"No it isn't."

"Is too."

"Pull it together."

"Right. Sorry. Okay, let's do this."

He reached out, put two fingers on her forehead, and began murmuring in Ancient Aramaic. A sudden rush of wind, a flash of blinding light, and the room was empty.

Dean was getting fed up. They had been on this case for what felt like a lifetime, when in reality, it had only been about a week. This particular demon was wily, and always seemed one step ahead of them. He couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why. And his brother, the Eternal Geek, was no help whatsoever.

Sam was poring over their father's journal, trying to make heads or tails out of what they had been encountering. So far, he was as clueless as Dean, who was lying on his bed in their motel room, staring at the ceiling. Sam surreptitiously glanced at Dean, concerned. He knew Dean _hated_ this feeling -something completely out of his control, the missing piece of the puzzle just out of reach. They had been wracking their brains, going over every note, every book, and every search engine hit they could find, and they were still coming up blank.

Dean finally sat straight up, and threw his pillow at the wall. "Dammit, this is killing me."

Sam sighed, and turned his attention back to the journal. "I know. But there is no point going after it until we know what we're up against and how to kill it."

"Whatever dude. We are going to take a walk and get out of this damn room." He stood up and stretched. "Come on."

Sam just rolled his eyes up at Dean. "I'm working."

"No you're not. Your brain is rotting. I can hear the spiders inside your giant head building their cobwebs. Let's go," he said, gesturing to the door. Sam leaned back in his chair. Maybe a walk would help. He felt like he was grasping at straws, coming up with insane theories that were all less likely than the last. He pushed away from the table and began crossing towards the door, taking care to check Dean on the shoulder as he passed.

"Bitch!"

"Jerk."

Sam opened the door and stepped out with Dean right behind him. The sun was shining brightly. Both boys squinted into the light- they'd both spent the majority of the morning in the fluorescent lights of the motel room, reading notes and websites. Actual sunlight was a bit terrifying. Dean shook off the melancholy and took a couple deep lung fulls of fresh air.

"That's better," he said. "Another couple minutes of your smell, and I was going to have to waste you myself."

"At least I shower on a daily basis," Sam shot back, beginning to walk towards the park across the street from the motel. Dean stopped, shrugged, and then fell in line behind his little brother.

"Alright, now that we're out of that crap hole, let's regroup and go over this again." Sam nodded his assent. "It's definitely a demon."

"Traces of sulfur wherever it goes."

"Right," Dean agreed. "And everything we've tried to use on it doesn't seem to work."

"Silver, iron, or brass doesn't hurt it," Sam said.

"And we can't get close enough to trap it to do an exorcism, much less throw holy water or salt on its ass," Dean said, clenching his jaw.

"Dean, don't you think that's weird? I mean, no other demon is afraid of getting close to us."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Normally they can't wait to get their scaly claws all over this perfection," he said, running his hands down his torso. Sam just rolled his eyes, which Dean didn't appreciate. "Although I understand why it may want to stay away from you."

Sam chose not to rise to Dean's bait. "It's like this thing knows us, knows what we do."

Dean looked at Sam, exasperated. "Seriously? Do you think there is a demon alive who _doesn't_ know what we do? Don't know if you've noticed, Sammy, but we're kinda famous in the underworld."

Sam shook his head. "That's not what I mean. It's like the thing has studied us, you know? It knows how we operate, how we think."

Dean gave him that one and nodded, agreeing. The original case they were pursuing had all the classic rules of a vindictive spirit. A teenager had been killed when he swerved off the road. The other kid that had been in the car who survived, said that they saw a body suddenly standing in the middle of the back road they had been driving down, causing the kid to swerve and plow into a tree. After some research into the family, Dean discovered that the dead teen's grandfather had caused an auto accident back when he was the same age, killing his little brother. And then the kid's father had killed his best friend in a similar car crash. The boys found the body of the original accident victim, salted, and burned it. But apparently, that hadn't been enough.

While they had been watching the corpse burn, the demon appeared before them. Out of nowhere, in the dead of night, it showed up in the graveyard, just staring at them- directly through the funeral pyre. It had taken on the vessel of a young male, around 28, who clearly had come directly from the gym. That was about all they could tell though- the fire made it difficult to discern his facial features. The demon looked curiously at both boys, then gave them a bone chilling grin, and vanished again without so much as a word. Neither Sam nor Dean knew what to make of that. As the days went on, this demon had sought them out, tried to draw them out repeatedly, but wouldn't take them on if it saw both of them together. They had tried splitting apart and setting an ambush, but the second the demon saw Sam closing in for the kill, it abandoned its pursuit of Dean, and vanished in cloud of sulfur.

Sam was staring at the ground, searching for the missing piece of the game. There was something that just wasn't falling into place. This demon was hell bent on getting to the Winchesters, but had such a strong sense of self preservation that it was willing to keep playing this little game of cat-and-mouse until it got what it came for. Sam was concentrating so hard that he was shutting everything else around him out, so he didn't think twice about the sudden gust of wind that came up. And Dean just flat out wasn't paying attention to nature, as usual.

All of the sudden, a figure dropped right in front of them, seemingly out of thin air. Sam almost stepped on it, barely catching himself. The thing had crumpled to the ground from the fall, and it seemed to be breathing hard. Sam grabbed Dean's arm just in time to keep his brother from stepping on it.

"Whoa! What the hell?!" Dean exclaimed when he saw the shape on the ground. He automatically reached for the pistol tucked into the back of his jeans, but then stopped himself. His hunter's eyes scanned the creature. It slowly began to unwind and try to pick itself up. Dean was shocked to see it was just- a girl. He blinked, and shook his head to be sure of what he was seeing. Yes, it was a girl- a teenage girl. She was pretty- _She's freaking beautiful,_ was what Dean actually thought- probably about 14 or 15, about a foot shorter than he was, with long, dark hair that couldn't decide if it wanted to be wavy or straight, and piercing green eyes. She looked like she took care of herself, too. Except at the present moment, when he could hear her swearing under her breath as she stretched out her cramped muscles from the fall and began dusting herself off. Dean shifted his weight so his gun so it was easier to draw on her if need be. Sam threw his brother an incredulous look- he knew that casual shift too well.

"Dude, chill out, she's just a kid," he whispered to his brother.

"How many kids you know fall out of the sky?" Dean growled back. Sam shook his head, and turned to the girl.

"Miss? Are you okay?" he asked gently.

Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice. She had to blink for a few seconds to stop the rush of tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. "Sam?" she said in a small voice. He started, and took a step back. How did this kid know his name? The way she was looking at him, it was like she knew him, knew him clearly and well, but he was sure he had never seen her before this moment.

"Um, yeah...?" He said, not really knowing what to say. The girl's eyes slid over to Dean, and they got even wider. She seemed to be staring directly into his soul, which automatically put Dean on edge.

"Dean?" she whispered. "Dean Winchester?"

Now it was Dean's turn to start. He exchanged a quick glance with Sam, his tension rising. "Yeah. Who are you?"

The girl took a calming breath, and seemed to steel herself by raising her head and snapping her shoulders back. Sam was again caught off guard- there was something familiar about that gesture.

"My name is Natalie. I'm here to help you," the girl said. Both boys just stared at her. The wind blew a gust of leaves in their direction, but nobody moved. Dean finally broke the awkward silence.

"Yeah, okay Skywalker. And where are Chewie and Han?" Dean asked sarcastically.

Sam cleared his throat- Dean was so stupid sometimes, he didn't know why it still surprised him. "Uh, okay, Natalie. What kind of help are you supposed to be giving us?" he said.

"I know you're following a demon, and I know that you can't figure out how to kill it. I'm here to help you finish it off," she said.

"And what makes you think that, kid?" Dean said, his voice rising in volume. He wasn't normally one to yell at kids he didn't even know, but he was freaked out. Not only did this kid show up out of thin air, almost under his feet, now she knew that he and Sam were hunters? And not just that, the fact that they were on a case that they couldn't solve.

"Because I know who you are and what you do. I'm a hunter too," Natalie said.

"Oh, sure you are. Prove it," Dean hissed at her. Natalie just rolled her eyes. Okay, that really threw Dean. This kid clearly knew who he was, so she must know what he was capable of, but she was acting like a teenager being told to hand over her homework for inspection. Sam caught the eye roll too, but he was still more concerned that Dean's itchy trigger finger was going to get this girl hurt.

"Dean, just calm down," Sam whispered.

"No, it's okay. I'll prove who I am," Natalie said to Sam. "First off, can I have the bottle of holy water in your left pocket?" Sam's eyes got wide. How on earth could she know that he always carried holy water in his left pocket? When he didn't move, Natalie said with a smile, "I just want to show you I'm not a demon." Sam reached slowly into his left pocket and withdrew the small flask. Natalie, not missing a beat, said, "Thanks," proceeded to unscrew the top, and splashed herself in the face with the water. She shook the droplets off her face, and screwed the top back on the flask, then offered it back to Sam. Neither brother moved. This was beyond weird.

"And may I have some of the salt in your pants pocket?" She asked, her gaze moving to Dean, and continued to brush the water out of her eyes.

"Okay, seriously, what the hell kid?" Dean growled, the tension in his voice rising. She just held out her hand patiently.

"Dean, give it to her," Sam said quietly.

Dean gave him an annoyed look. Sam just stared back with his intense _Just do it_ gaze. "I don't freaking believe this," Dean grumbled, digging into his pocket. He hurled the small container at her, but she had lighting quick reflexes and caught it easily. She opened it, never taking her eyes off Dean, and threw a handful of salt on her torso.

"See? Not a demon. And no, I'm not a shape shifter." She walked closer to Sam. "Can I borrow your silver knife?" Sam froze- handing the girl salt was one thing, but a knife? Natalie saw the reluctance, and rolled her eyes again. She slowly drew her own silver knife out of her boot- holding it out to them. "Here then, we'll use mine. Do you want to take a look at it first?" she asked, proffering the knife. When neither of them moved, she gave an exasperated sigh, yanked up her left sleeve, and gave herself a cut with the knife. When nothing happened, she slipped the knife back into her boot, and turned to them both with an expectant expression. Sam gave a disbelieving huff.

"Dean- that's exactly how you showed me to you weren't a shape shifter," Sam mumbled. It was all he could think of to say, being still unsure of what was really going on.

"While we're at it," Natalie continued, raising her hands to her top lip and exposing her gums. Sam knew what she was showing him. She had no fangs.

"Okay, so you're human, we get it. Good job. Now tell us who you really are," Dean snarled, losing patience. Natalie took a deep breath, and stepped closer to him. He didn't move at all, despite 32 years of hunter experience screwing with his mind, going haywire.

"Okay, so just hear me out," Natalie said. Dean caught a flicker of fear in her eyes. "I told you I'm here to help you..." she began.

"Yeah, got that part," Dean interrupted. Natalie clenched her jaw and looked him straight in the eye.

"I'm from the future."

"The...future?" Dean stuttered. He didn't like this. He had done some time traveling himself- through no choice of his own, and good very seldom came from it. Sam was just looking quickly back from him to the girl, as if unsure what to do. _Join the club, buddy,_ Dean thought to himself.

"Yes. My name is Natalie...Natalie Winchester."

Dean's face registered shock. Before he could even take a breath, she spoke again, making sure she was looking him straight in the eye.

"I'm your daughter."

Dean shook his head, as if trying to clear the crazy out of it. "Come again?" he said. She exhaled, as if relieved to finally get that off her chest.

"I'm your daughter. I've come back in time to help you on this hunt. I know things about this demon that will help you defeat it," Natalie said as casually as if she had been mentioning that the grass was green. Dean, completely flabbergasted, looked to Sam for help, apparently struck mute. Sam gathered himself, and walked forward slowly, speaking gently, like he would have to a wounded animal encountered on the side of the road. "Um...Natalie? Was it?" She nodded. "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to explain a little better than this," he said.

Natalie snickered. "Look, I'm sorry. I know it's not every day that a kid drops out of the sky and tells you that she's from the future and she's your daughter" looking to Dean, "or your niece," gesturing at Sam, "but that's the God's honest truth." She looked quickly from Sam back to Dean, who still hadn't moved, and then trained her gaze on Sam again. "I know this sounds crazy, but I can help you if you let me."

"Okay, how can you help us?" Sam asked, still speaking gently. She quickly reached into the inside of her coat, and Dean automatically drew his gun in response. Her eyes flicked up, and she froze, then slowly lifted her hands.

"Sorry- my bad. I know better than to move like that. My mistake." She closed her eyes for a moment, silently scolding herself. "Look- I just want to show you this." She continued to move slowly, acting like they were the wounded animals now. She withdrew an old journal- an oh-so-familiar looking old journal. Sam gasped when he realized what it was. He darted forward and snatched it out of her hands and began thumbing through it. Dean took his eyes off Natalie just long enough to check out the journal. He, too, instantly recognized it. He dropped his gun and closed in on the two of them.

"Yep, that's Grandpa's journal," Natalie proudly proclaimed. Both brothers' eyes sought her face, growing even wider at the word _Grandpa_.

"How did you get this?" Sam asked. "I was just reading this and left it in our room not 2 minutes ago."

"This isn't your journal." Sam stared at her, disbelieving. She tried to amend her statement. "Well, I mean, it IS your journal, but not really."

"What?!"

"This is the journal from my time," she explained, getting frustrated at looking like such a dork trying to explain this. "Look through it. You'll see notes in there that are in your handwriting, but you haven't technically written them yet as of right now." Sam took two seconds to try to process that statement, but then went back to thumbing through the book. Dean looked into Natalie's eyes sternly, determined to get to the bottom of this.

"Fine. You say you're my kid? And you're from the future?" he demanded. She didn't even bat an eyelash. She pursed her lips together like she was trying to suppress a smile.

"Sure am."

"You know future me."

"I know you both better than any person on this planet," she countered. THAT made even Sam break his gaze from the journal. This kid was claiming she knew them both better than they knew each other? That was a stretch. Apparently, Dean shared his assessment.

"Really," he said dryly.

"Uh-huh."

"Then you'd know exactly what I'd ask you about my future self," he said triumphantly, convinced he was about to blow her whole crazy story. Natalie just raised one eyebrow and smirked, _just like I do,_ Dean thought before he could stop himself. He smirked back. There was no way she would be able to figure out what he-

"Yes, Mom is hot."

Dean's jaw hit the ground, but she wasn't done.

"And yes, you still have the Impala."

Dean blinked twice, the information registering in his brain. There was no denying the truth- she had nailed it.

"Holy shit. I'm a dad," he breathed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sweet Child Of Mine part 2**

 **by Emma Winchester 424**

 **Hello everyone, and welcome to part 2 of Sweet Child of Mine! I'm not going to be long winded here, but I hope you enjoy the next section! Much gratitude, love, and kissing of the papal ring to Jenmm31- my own personal Castiel :). If you want to read an amazing, wonderful, heartfelt story, go check out her sisfic series, Growing up, Winchester Style, and One Day At A Time. You will not be sorry- she's a fantastic writer, and a kick ass beta!**

A/N- this part of the story only really makes sense if you've read the first part. Rated T for Language, because Dean.

Dean shook his head. This was getting to be way too much for him, way too fast. He tried to calm down, but his brain was spinning out wildly. Natalie walked towards him slowly. She knew he was on the verge of freaking out. She schooled her features to be very calm- she had always been able to keep her Dad's hot head under control, and she knew exactly what to do. It was one of the reasons her, Dean, and Sam made such a good team.

"Look, I know this is a lot to take in-" she began gently.

"Ya think?!" Dean spat out. She forced herself to not roll her eyes, and kept right on talking like he hadn't interrupted.

"But I promise you, I'm here to help. We can take this thing out, once and for all, together." She looked to her uncle, who seemed to be taking this much more calmly than her father. He was still poring over the old journal with apparently no plans of looking up from it ever again. She sighed, and turned her gaze back to Dean, realizing that the gun was still in his hands. "Can you put the gun away please?" she asked patiently. He looked down, and seemed surprised to see that it was still in his grasp. "Oh, uh, yeah...sorry," he said gruffly, tucking his gun into his waistband at the small of his back. At the mention of the word "gun", Sam finally looked up.

"So you know what this thing is? This demon? How did you figure it out?" he asked Natalie. She shifted her gaze to him, and launched into her story.

"About a day ago, in my time," she said, "The three of us were on a typical case. This chick's dad had been drowned the day her son was born, and then the demon that did it came after her. You guys just managed to save her, but then that turned the demon's attention to us. And that's when it got weird."

"What do you mean, weird?" Sam questioned.

Natalie hesitated, biting her lip. "The demon- once it saw you two, its focus...shifted. I've never seen anything like it. It completely forgot about the woman- like it didn't care about her anymore."

"It abandoned her?" Dean asked incredulously. Natalie nodded vigorously.

"It was like- it had been waiting for you guys or something. Like it knew you would show up. And then the damn thing saw me," she said, looking at Sam. She was trying to suppress the shiver that was threatening to run over her skin at the memory of that moment. She steeled herself, just like her Dad taught her- _Don't feel it and it can't get to you_ \- and she continued, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. "It grinned- like this horrible grin..."

"That chilled you to the bone," Sam said simply. She was describing exactly what it felt like for them in the graveyard when they saw the demon's smile. She exchanged glances with him, nodded, and spoke again.

"And it said...'It's about time'." At this new information, Dean and Sam exchanged a glance full of apprehension. That certainly didn't sound good. Natalie continued quietly.

"It...it began sprinting towards me, but at the last second, Uncle Sam, you came out of nowhere and pushed me out of the way," she whispered, dropping her gaze to the ground. "And it wrapped its arms around you instead." Sam felt the wind knocked out of him at this statement. He stared at Natalie, but she continued to study the ground, kicking it with her foot. "And then," she eventually said, the bitterness creeping into her voice, "It said, 'Well, I guess he'll have to do- for now'. The bastard grinned again," she said, unable to suppress the shiver that ran up her spine this time, "and it disappeared with you," she said, finally looking up at Sam.

"Wait- disappeared with him? Like just- poof- and Sam and the demon were gone?" Dean broke in, his voice taking on its usual growl that meant he was pissed. Natalie nodded at the ground, not wanting to look at him either. She was still feeling guilty over the whole scenario, even though she wasn't really to blame. Guilt was just a natural trait of the Winchesters, kind of like breathing or blinking.

"Where did it go?" Dean pressed. Natalie finally met his eyes with a slight sense of relief- now they were getting to the root of the problem and could start taking action. She bobbed her head back, annoyed at the situation. "That's the thing. We didn't know, at first."

"At first? You mean you figured it out?" Sam asked.

"I think I figured it out last night. Well, I think I figured out part of it anyways," Natalie said.

"How? We've been doing all the research we can for days, and we've come up empty," Sam argued.

Natalie looked at him, with a bit of a patronizing look. "That's because you guys have been looking in the wrong place." Both boys were taken aback by that statement. She looked at her uncle, and then her father.

"Have you guys ever heard of a Generational Curse?" They exchanged glances, Dean shrugging to show that he had not. Sam squinted his eyes, trying to remember. " Generational curse..." Sam mumbled to himself. There was something familiar, but he just couldn't remember what.

"Yeah, it's a Biblical thing," Natalie said. "You guys have been researching demonology, gods, and the usual stuff on this one, but you actually need to be looking in the Bible. Is there a library in this town?" she asked. Dean jerked his head to the north. "Yeah, there's one up on Monroe," he said. "Sweet, let's go," she said. "I'll show you what I mean." She then held her outstretched hand to Dean, palm up. He stared at it, as if he had never seen a hand before.

"What?" he said stonily.

"Car keys, please," she stated simply. His face contorted into a look that said _You must be joking._ Apparently, she knew the look well.

"You always let me drive," she said, keeping her face perfectly straight. "You said before you leave 'Baby' to me in your will, that I have to drive it 1000 times to prove that I am 'worthy' of her," she said. Dean thought about it for a moment- it actually did sound like something he would say. He still wasn't sure though, and luckily for him, Sam, who had been watching the entire exchange, came to his rescue at that moment.

"You're lying," he said to her, one eyebrow cocked. Natalie's gaze swung to his face.

"Excuse me?" she said with a half-laugh. Sam narrowed his eyes, refusing to be put off by her laughter, and looked right into hers.

"I don't know how I know, but you're lying," he said again. Something about the way she had said it caught his attention. She was good- her voice hadn't changed, no squirming like liars usually did. Her eyes didn't even dilate. But beyond a shadow of a doubt, he knew she hadn't been telling the truth. Natalie opened her mouth furiously to retort, but he just cocked the other eyebrow, silently daring her to challenge him. She stammered for a second, trying to come up with a good response, but then Dean stepped into her line of vision, wearing a similar expression to Sam's. There was no getting past them both. She blew out her breath in a huff.

"Dammit," she growled, brushing past the two of them. She stomped forward a couple feet, stopped, turned, and gave them both a half hearted grin. "Well it was worth a shot, right? Let's go," she said, turning back towards the motel parking lot across the street where the Impala was parked. Dean looked at his brother, still a bit shaken at the turn of events, but there was just the slightest hint of amusement in his eyes too. This little girl, trying to get away with driving his Baby, the coolest car in the world... "Well, she's definitely my kid," Dean stated dryly.

About fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in the public library, thumbing through a dusty old copy of the Bible. Natalie flicked thru the first couple pages, sneezed, and then, finding what she was looking for, pointed at the verse, and slid it over to Sam, who was sitting next to her. Dean had been standing, leaning over her with his hands on the back of her chair, following along with her, reading. "There," she said, emphasizing it by pointing again into the book. Sam squinted his eyes, and read the verse from Exodus.

"'He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and the children's children, to the third and fourth generations'." Sam read quietly. Natalie twisted in her chair and looked into Dean's face with a _See?_ expression in her eyes.

"This verse is referring to the Generational Curse demon. Generational Curses were popular in the Old Testament. Anytime someone committed what was perceived as a "sin", this demon would visit them," she said.

"And then the curse got passed onto the children..."Sam began

"...To the third and fourth generation." Natalie finished his sentence. "It's a demon that tracks families through the generations."

"That's why it was going after that kid who got in the accident," Sam said quickly. Natalie nodded, glad he was on the same page with her. "The grandfather caused the curse when he caused the accident all those years ago, and then it went after his son..."

"And his son's son," Natalie jumped in.

"Also explains the drowning case that you were dealing with," Dean added, nodding his head to her.

"Exactly right, dad," she said.

"Whoa. Hold it," Dean said, holding up his hand and trying not to look too freaked out by what she just called him. "Look, I'm sorry, you're probably going to need boat loads of therapy from this, but..." He stopped to clear his throat. "I'm not ready to be called 'Dad' just yet." Sam shot Dean his infamous bitch face, but Dean didn't care. He liked this girl, and somewhere in his brain, he knew she was who she said she was, but that didn't stop it from being too much for him at the moment. He looked at the girl, trying to gauge her reaction. Natalie, to her credit, kept her face perfectly smooth.

"Oh. Yeah, I guess I should have seen that coming," she mused. "Sorry," she apologized.

"It's okay, but...just...don't call me 'Dad', just yet, okay?" Dean pressed, shifting his weight onto the other foot, clearly very, very uncomfortable.

"Yes sir," she said obediently, without thinking. It was what she had been brought up to say, after all. However, Dean's face instantly switched to pissed. Natalie began backtracking immediately.

"Yes...D-Dean. Yes Dean. Uh...sorry again." Dean jerked his head once in acknowledgement of her apology, then shook himself as if trying to get rid of the whole uncomfortable moment. But Natalie couldn't help it. She looked down, desperate to keep it in, but she quietly snorted. Of course, both boys caught it.

"What? What's so funny?" Dean demanded, still not quite in control of his emotions.

Natalie made sure her calm face was set before looking up and answering. "It's just...the last time I called you 'Dean', you grounded me for a month." Now it was Sam's turn to snort-laugh. Dean looked disbelieving at his brother.

"Shuddup," he hissed at Sam. Sam ran a hand over his smile, trying to wipe it off his face, then he jumped back into the case, clearly still amused.

"So how did you figure out that it was a curse demon?" Sam said, not really trying to keep the humor of the previous moment out of his voice.

"We were driving away after that son of a bitch took Sam-" she began, the anger immediately showing on her face.

"We just left?" Dean questioned, a little too loudly for a library. The couple people at the neighboring tables pretended not to notice.

"There was no point in staying there- like I said, we had no idea where he took Sam- so you and I were driving home to reload and get a game plan," she said to Dean. "And that's when you told me that it was similar to a demon that you had faced in your past-" she stopped herself, "well, in YOUR present- whatever," she said, brushing off trying to use the proper context. "And it got me thinking of what these attacks had in common- trying to link the pieces."

"That's exactly what we've been trying to do, too, but we never crossed anything about a generational demon," Sam said.

"I know. You guys don't have the second case to cross check it with- well, not yet anyways." Sam shook his head at Natalie's statement- this whole trying to keep the present and the future straight was brain twisting. "Most demonologists don't really give much thought to generational curses. They've assumed they died out with the Old Testament. I mean, even you two don't pay much attention to Scripture, owing to the fact that it gets a lot of things wrong, but I've studied it pretty extensively."

"You have?" Sam asked, curious. She bobbed her eyebrows at him.

"Yeah, not much else to do growing up in a hotel room before you two started letting me kick some evil ass," she said with a shrug, looking away. Sam and Dean exchanged another incredulous look, but before they could question her further on that particular subject, she twisted again, leaning her back on the table, and bending her leg so it was up on the chair. She was now facing Dean.

"So I noticed that all these attacks had the same traits as a generational curse- each of them reaching into the third generation, determined to take one of the family. Then I mentioned to you something I had noticed when the demon got so close to me," she said, her facial features falling back into her hard-as-iron look. The information she was about to drop on them was going to go over about as well as it had in her time, and she was bracing herself for the Chernobyl that was about to take place.

"The demon has yellow eyes." Dean stood bolt upright, while Sam gripped the Bible tightly, both of them struggling to breathe in the room that had suddenly become way too small.

"No. No way. I sent Old Yellow Eyes back to Hell myself," Dean growled, shaking his head emphatically.

"I know," Natalie said patiently. "It's not the demon that killed Gra- Mary," she said, rushing the last word to try to cover her almost mistake. Dean clenched his teeth together. He knew exactly what she had been about to call his mother, and he nearly had an aneurism. Natalie caught his vibe, and proceeded even more gently, in a soothing tone, but rushing to get him back on the right train of thought.

"How can you be sure?" Sam asked quietly, his thoughts taking a dark turn.

"From what you've both told me about Azazel, he wasn't so direct as this demon. Your exact words were, 'He really liked to monologue'," she said dryly. "This particular demon is just too the point- and with a much stronger sense of how to avoid trouble than Yellow Eyes. He just doesn't want to play around as much as Azazel did," she said. Sam nodded slowly, trying to figure out this new piece of the puzzle.

"Maybe it's one of his kids?" Sam asked, looking at Dean. But Dean just shook his head.

"It can't be his kid. All his kids had the typical black eyes of the regular demons," he said, remembering Meg.

"You're right," Sam said, and stopped again, thinking. He had a sudden brain wave. "Hang on, though." He looked up to find both Dean and Natalie watching him.

"Demons can have kids, right?" he asked. They both nodded in tandem.

"So that means that demons can have siblings," he said slowly. Natalie gasped.

"What if this demon is Yellow Eyes' brother?" she said quietly.

"Yeah, that would make sense!" Sam said excitedly. "It's Azazel's brother- and seeing as you killed his brother-" he started, looking at Dean.

"He's out for vengeance," Dean said, putting it together. "He's placed his own generational curse...on us."

"That's why it doesn't take you guys now- here in your time- when you're fighting it," Natalie rushed in. "It doesn't want your brother, it wants your kid."

Both boys swung their gazes to her face. "It operated in generations. That's why- in my time- when it saw me, it charged me. I'm guessing that it took Sam, figuring that you and I would come to rescue him, and then it would plan to get to me. I can't believe I didn't see that," she said flatly.

Dean leaned forward, gripping the back of her chair again. He had known this girl claiming to be his daughter for a grand total of about an hour at this point, but the idea of a demon taking her filled him with a rage he had never known before- a rage that took him completely off guard. She placed a hand over his white knuckles that were threatening to splinter the back of the chair she was still sitting in. "Hey- Dean, it's okay," she said reassuringly. His eyes flicked to her, and saw the concern and compassion in them. He couldn't seem to tear his gaze away- he couldn't imagine looking into those eyes and seeing despair or hurt. While he was still trying to grapple with this new feeling, Natalie gave his hand a squeeze, and the moment broke.

"So, um..." Dean stammered, clearing his throat. Nope- he wasn't dealing with this right now. He still hated chick flick moments, even though this one was worlds away from any one he had ever had before. "So future me lets you go back in time to challenge this thing now, instead of taking it on in your time?" he questioned gruffly. Now it was Natalie's turn to squirm. She looked down, refusing to meet their eyes, becoming, instead, extremely interested in her fingernails. Sam and Dean caught each other's eyes for a split second, and made the mutual decision to just stand there. They had enough experience dragging information out of people to know that sometimes, the best weapon was to do nothing at all, and just wait for the other party's conscience to needle them enough to spit out the truth.

"Weeeeell...not exactly," she finally murmured. Sam furrowed his brow, exchanging another loaded glace with his brother.

"What do you mean?" he asked. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair now, dropping her hands, but still making an effort to avoid their eyes.

"You don't... EXACTLY know that I'm here," she said, twisting her mouth like a toddler telling a lie. Dean leaned in closer, and she seemed to shrink down in her chair a bit. Dean remembered doing that exact same thing when he was a kid who was in trouble with his dad. He narrowed his eyes.

"Explain," he said sternly.

"I...made a deal," she said quietly.

"You did WHAT?" he yelled. The other patrons of the library glared in his direction this time, but he didn't even acknowledge them. Natalie rolled her eyes.

"Calm down, already. I made a deal with Cas," she hissed. That threw Dean for a loop.

"Castiel is in on this too?" he demanded.

"Yes," she mumbled, biting back the 'sir' that almost came out. Her eyes flicked up to her dad. This was, she knew, a slight indication of what she was going to be coming back to in her time, what Castiel had warned her about, and already she knew she was in deeper shit than she'd ever been in before. Sam leaned forward too, and she instinctively leaned away from him, slightly. If there was one thing worse than being in trouble with Dean, it was being in trouble with Dean AND Sam.

"Why did you have to make a deal with Cas to come back?" Sam said, his voice calm. Her head snapped up at that question- clearly, she had that Winchester ability to go from zero to pissed in 1.8 seconds. Her eyes shot over to Dean.

"When we got home, I tried to start talking game plan with you, but you completely shut me down. You forbade me to come back with you to try to rescue Sam. You wouldn't listen to anything I had to say. You flat out refused to let me go, wouldn't even listen to my reasoning, " she said defensively, now straight up glaring at Dean. Clearly, this was a topic that still stung her. "So you left me no choice. There was no way that I was going to let you go in there alone," she threw at him, crossing her arms stubbornly. Dean was taken aback by her sudden anger, and in true Winchester fashion, went from zero to pissed himself.

"So you thought I couldn't do this without you? That putting yourself in the line of fire was something I should have just gone along with willing? Said, 'Hey kid, demon may be after you too, yay, let's go'?!" he argued, his voice rising. He couldn't believe that he was arguing with his future kid about something that his future self allegedly did.

"We are better as a team, and you know it!" she shot back, her voice now rising well above acceptable library volume. "You're so worried that I would get hurt, that you're not thinking clearly. What about if you get hurt, huh? How do you think that would make me feel?"

The older gentleman sitting two tables away from them, cleared his throat loudly and glared in their direction. Already provoked and with her temper flaring, Natalie shot daggers back at the man.

"Oh, bite me, jackass," she hissed at the old man.

"Watch your mouth!" Dean snarled without even thinking about it.

"Whoa, whoa, hold on. Both of you need to calm down, NOW," Sam said, calmly but firmly. Both father and daughter whipped their heads in his direction, fury in their eyes. Sam had his hands half raised, as if in surrender, but in reality, it was to be ready to grab them and haul them outside if need be. He had had to do that on several occasions with his brother- he could only assume that his niece would be the same way. As if on cue, both Dean and Natalie took a deep breath and looked at each other at the exact same time. There was a moment of awkwardness for Dean, realizing once again, that this really was his kid, but Natalie was too used to doing things in tandem with him- even if this was his younger self. She broke the silence first.

"I'm sorry," she said, low. He looked into her eyes again, and saw the genuine remorse there. It stabbed him in the heart.

"Yeah, um, me...also," he said awkwardly. Natalie gave him a half smile. Bizarrely, it suddenly dawned on him that he hadn't seen her give a real smile yet. At the time, it was no more than a passing thought, but one that would trouble him later on.

Seeing that the danger had passed, Sam looked around apologetically to the other library patrons, who quietly turned their attention away from the family drama that was dissipating. He then pulled another book towards him, and began flipping thru it to a chapter he had been reading before. He found what he was looking for, and pushed it towards his niece.

"Check this out," he said. They both turned their attentions to him. "This talks about demons in families having similar weaknesses. You remember how the only thing that could kill Yellow Eyes was the Colt?" he asked Dean.

"Yeah? So?" Dean said.

"What if it's the same with this demon? Maybe there are only certain things that can harm him," Sam said.

Dean exhaled loudly. "That's why it seemed impervious to everything we threw at it. Remember when we doused Dad with holy water when Yellow Eyes was inside him? Didn't even make a scratch." Sam nodded enthusiastically.

"They have very few weaknesses. Azazel was trying to create an army, so a weapon specifically designed for war made it vulnerable."

Dean looked up at Sam. "You think the Colt would waste Yellow Eye's kid brother?" But Natalie answered instead.

"No, because it's not the same kind of demon. It has to be something related to its purpose," she mused.

"It needs one of us. It goes after families," Sam said tightly. "It wants Natalie by herself, so it can destroy her without fear of becoming vulnerable to anyone around. Since it knows us, and it knows what we do, it avoided taking us on together, partially because it wasn't really wanting us, also probably knowing that we would figure it all out," he rushed on. Natalie began shaking her head.

"Hang on though. It charged me when it saw me- why would it do that in your presence if being near me made it an easy target?" she questioned. "It's almost like..." and she froze. Both brothers quickly looked at her to make sure she was okay, but she was just putting the pieces together. "It's compulsory," she breathed. "It finally saw me, the target, after waiting for so long, that it couldn't help but try." A knot formed in the pit of her stomach as she came to the conclusion that nothing was going to keep this demon from attacking until it had her.

They were all frozen at this new and unwelcome revelation, when all of the sudden, Dean's stomach rumbled loudly. Sam and Natalie both looked at him with a mixture of surprise, disgust on Sam's part, and humor on Natalie's. Dean shrugged defensively. "What."

Natalie exhaled loudly, intensely grateful for the break in the terror. "We actually probably should get something to eat. None of us still know how to track it, and, according to the notes in your journal, the demon only attacks once more, and it's tomorrow night. We should pack it in and get some rest," she said. She stood up and stretched. Sam stood up as well, and, looking down on her, was a bit surprised to realize how very short she actually was. He was staring at her when she felt his gaze and looked up. "Yes?" she said, half knowing what his incredulous look was about.

"Nothing, nothing..." he trailed off, embarrassed. They left their library books on the table, and all started to make their way to the exit. Natalie snickered again and decided to address his train of non-verbalized thought. "Unfortunately, the Winchester Sasquatch trait was something I did NOT inherit," she said, her tone laced with annoyance. Dean chuckled at her comment, and she turned her gaze to him, a ghost of a smile on her face. There was a making up in the look that they shared, completely erasing all previous tension from their fight. She turned away, hiding her smile. Again, Dean wondered why she did that- hid her smile. Before he could comment, though, she said, "Any good sports bars in this town?"

It was Sam's turn to snort now. "A bar? I don't think so," he said, chuckling. Dean suddenly realized that he didn't actually know how old she was.

"How old are you, anyways?" Dean questioned.

"I'm seventeen," she answered, looking him straight in the eye. "So it's perfectly okay."

"Um, last I checked, the legal drinking age was 21," he replied evenly.

"So? I knew I was coming here- I've got the right IDs," she said, producing them from her pocket.

"Fake IDs are not the point, kid," Dean said. Natalie stared at him, and then rolled her eyes like _Oh, duh._

"Oh, that's right. I forgot to tell you- in the future, they've changed the legal drinking age to 16," she said.

Dean stopped in his tracks. "Seriously?" he questioned. Natalie shrugged.

"Yup. Kids were drinking so much that the government figured, what the hell, if you can't beat 'em, pass a law that lets you join them." She gave her father a proud look. "I've been drinking with you for going on 2 years now." Dean looked away for a second, then looked back at her. This was _awesome._

"Sweet! Let's do it!" he said, and began jogging towards the Impala. Natalie silently congratulated herself, but that thought dropped the second Sam stepped in front of her. His eyebrow was cocked, just like before when he challenged her about the Impala. Her uncle had always had this super power, but she hadn't counted on him still having it when he had only known her for a day. He opened him mouth, but she quickly whispered, "C'mon, let me have this one. How many times are you going to get the chance to drink with your super cool niece when you're still a young buck?"

Sam inhaled deeply, then sighed, looking into her pleading, beautiful green eyes. He may have known when she was lying, but she clearly had the power of wrapping him around her little finger. Reluctantly, he nodded his assent. She wrapped her arms around his torso and squeezed, burying her smile into his chest. He grabbed her shoulders and held her back at arms' length.

"One drink," he said sternly.

"Yes sir," she said, knowing in her heart that she would get him to cave in.

A few hours later, their checkerboard cloth-covered table at the local watering hole was covered with empty glasses. Sam and Dean's cheeks were hurting from laughing so hard. Well, at that particular moment, only Sam's were. Dean was finding himself on the receiving end of the humor. He attempted to drink his beer in what he considered a dignified silence while Sam was laughing harder than he had ever laughed before.

"Did I ever tell you about the time he got his ass kicked by Paris Hilton?" Sam managed to ask Natalie, who seemed to have a perpetual smirk plastered on her face.

"Are you kidding? It was my favorite bed time story," she chuckled, which made Sam cackle even more, banging on the table with his fist. Dean just rolled his eyes. He did NOT enjoy being on this end of the mocking- he was usually the mocker. Natalie noticed his enjoyment waning, and decided to turn the tables.

"That's not to say that he didn't get you back for telling me that, Uncle Sam," she said, letting the bait sit there. As expected, Dean jumped on that and took off running.

"UNCLE Sam," he said, cracking a smile. Sam took a couple of breaths mixed with laughs, and stammered out, "What?"

Dean put on his best grumpy face, and struck the pose from the famous old time Army poster. "I want YOU," he said, pointing at Sam. Sam finally got the joke, and just rolled his eyes in response. "Ha!" Dean said. "That's NEVER gonna get old," he said, his good humor quickly returning. Natalie jumped on that like lighting.

"Okay, so this one time, you woke me up in the middle of the night to help you pull a prank on good old Uncle Sam," Natalie said to Dean, twisting her mouth to suppress the smile.

"Oh, really?" Dean said, simply delighted at this turn of events. Sam looked away, still coming down off his laugh from before, so he was still playing along too, but, knowing his brother, this wasn't going to turn out well.

"Uh-huh. We super glued a beard and a red, white and blue top hat on him. He hit the roof when he woke up the next morning and saw it," she said, unable to keep her giggles in. Dean just pointed and blurted out a laugh at his brother. When he calmed down enough to talk, he turned back to Natalie.

"How old were you when we did this? Or DO this, I guess I should say," he asked, pleased with himself for catching the proper tense. She held her glass up to her mouth before she answered.

"Four," she said, and took a sip. That sent Dean over the edge again. Sam rolled his eyes, still smiling. "Ha ha, you two," he said, chuckling. Natalie shrugged, her sideways smile threatening to break into the real deal. Dean rubbed his hands together in pleasure, and his eyes landed on a couple of older guys at the pool table in the corner of the run down bar.

"Well, if you two will excuse me, I see some gentlemen over there who are just begging me to take their hard earned money," he said, and stood up. He took a final slug from his glass, and set it down.

"Kick some ass, Dean," Natalie cheered him on. He stopped for a moment. He didn't know if this was going to be the beer talking, but he felt good about what he was about to say.

"You know what?" he said, looking her right in the eyes. "You can call me 'Dad'."

Natalie looked shocked, then that real smile threatened to creep across her face again. "Really? Are you sure?" she asked dubiously.

"Yup," Dean said without hesitation.

"What made you change your mind?" she asked, pulling her straight face, not wanting to show how pleased she was at this turn of events.

"You are officially the coolest kid I know. And you have the coolest dad in the world, so why not?" he answered, his cocky grin spreading across his face.

"Alright then, Dad, go get us some mad money," she said, a grin on her face. This time, Dean knew it was the beer prompting him to ask, but what the hell, he was already down the rabbit hole.

"Why do you do that?" he questioned, keeping his green eyes latched on the identical ones in his daughter's face.

"Do what?" she asked, curiously.

"You never really smile. You smirk, you have a fakey grin that I know I taught you, or you hide it. Why do you do that?" he pressed.

"You always told me that people who smile too much can't be trusted," she said, illustrating her own point with her typical sideways grin. Dean nodded his head again, his own grin threatening to crack his face in two, and pointed at her. "That's my girl," he said, proudly, before turning on his heel and making his way over to the poor unsuspecting pool players. Once his back was turned, Natalie's eyes flicked over to Sam, but he appeared to be thinking deeply, and hadn't caught that last exchange. She kept her relieved sigh inside- she wasn't going to enlighten him if he didn't catch her. She was just going to enjoy that her Dad was totally cool with her. However, Sam's thoughts began to tumble out of his mouth now that Dean was gone.

"What year are you- or were you- whatever- born in?" he asked, the present-and-future tense thing messing with his mind again. Before Natalie could answer, however, there was a loud crash of thunder. All the patrons in the bar jumped in surprise- it was a perfectly clear night outside, no signs of any incoming storms.

"Geez, where did that come from?" Sam asked, looking around. Natalie, however, was glaring at the ceiling.

"Seriously, Cas? Did you really think I was going to answer that one?" she hissed. Sam looked up, but didn't see what she was talking to. She noticed his confused look, and tried to explain.

"Cas told me that he would 'intervene' if I got into any discussions that may affect the future," she said, and looked up at the ceiling again. "Really?" she seemed to be questioning the missing angel. "Thunder? Isn't that a bit cliché?"

"How does you telling me what year you were born in change the future?" Sam asked.

"Because suppose you tell Dad- he decides 'hey, maybe I should be a bit more careful this year', and bam, I never exist." She resumed looking at the ceiling as if Castiel was there, shaking her head in annoyance. Sam laughed, though. This kid was a trip- clearly Dean Winchester's daughter, but she seemed to have some of his smarts, even if she was just his niece. He decided to try to probe further.

"So that means you probably can't tell me anything about your mom, then." Natalie ran her thumb along the rim of her glass.

"Yeah, I, um...can't tell you anything."

"I figured- I just thought I'd ask, you know?"

She shook her head. "No, that's not what I mean. I mean- I CAN'T tell you anything about her." That got Sam's full attention. She stopped, waiting for another crack of thunder, but it never came. After a second, she continued. "She...um..." Natalie took a deep breath. She knew Sam wouldn't tell her dad for anything, and she had sort of been wanting to talk to him about this.

"She left. When I was a baby. I don't know exactly how old I was- Dad just always says 'when you were a baby'. He doesn't like to talk about her. I used to get in so much trouble for asking about her when I was younger. One day, when I was about ten, I kinda pushed him too far on the topic, and he finally told me the story. One day, he went into her room, and she was just gone. No note, no explanation, nothing. All she left was a picture of her holding me on the day I was born," she said. "And me. She left me too," she added as an afterthought.

Sam was stunned. He hadn't expected this. "Wow. Do you have that picture?" Natalie shook her head.

"No, it's only in digital form. I guess she texted it to him before she left. But he let me look at it." Her gaze wandered over to her father now, who was already causing his fellow pool players to exchange some rather grumpy looks. "That's how I know she was pretty. From that picture. But that's really all I know."

"You don't know her name?" Sam pried. Suddenly, another thunder clap sounded. Natalie just smirked, and pointed at the ceiling, indicating that her mother's name was a no-go.

"Did we try to find her?" he asked, gently. Natalie's gaze shifted to her thumb, which was still tracing the rim of her glass, deliberately not looking at Sam.

"You guys tried, but she obviously didn't want to be found. Left no trace, no trail, nothing." She wiped her hand on her lap, then looked at Sam. "After Dad told me that part of the story, I figured, hey, if she doesn't want to be found, I don't want to find her either. It's her loss, really," she said, the cocky grin creeping back onto her face. "I'm _awesome._ "

Sam laughed, and raised his glass to her. "That, you are." Natalie raised her own glass, and clinked it with her uncle's. She took a slow sip, choosing to savor the moment. She knew they still had quite the challenge ahead of them. They still had to figure out this demon's weakness before it attacked them tomorrow so they could get rid of it once and for all, but right now, in this moment, she reveled in the feeling that her Dad and Uncle had her back, just as firmly as she knew that she had theirs. They all may be flawed in countless other ways, but this was her family. This was what they did.

***************************************************************************************************************************** **And that's part 2! Stay tuned for part 3, the final chapter of Sweet Child of Mine. Will they find the demon in time? Will they discover its weakness? Will we ever learn who "You're So Vain" is actually about? Okay, probably not the last part, but you never know! :) Thanks for sticking with me!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sweet Child Of Mine part 3**

by Emma Winchester 424

 **Hello! Welcome to the final chapter of Sweet Child of Mine! Thank you soooooooooooo much for all the follows, favorites, and reviews- you all make my little hunter's heart happy.**

 **Much thanks to Jenmm31. I can't tell you how wonderful it's been to have such a great friend to help me along this new journey. I am forever grateful. Please go check out her amazing stories- One Day at a Time, and Growing Up, Winchester Style. She is a brilliant and gifted writer, and a major inspiration to me.**

 **Well, here we go! Enjoy! xoxoxo**

 **A/N- If you haven't already, please read the first two chapters, because this dives right in to the story with no exposition. Rated T for language, because Dean.**

Half-empty, warm beer bottles, crumpled bits of paper, an empty pizza box. Dean's eyes scanned the table that he was sitting at again, looking for something- anything- new to look at. When he made the circuit two more times and came up with nothing, he resignedly looked back at the thick book on demonic lore he had been staring at for over 2 hours. He restlessly flipped a couple more pages. Nada. He tried randomly opening the book to a different chapter. Nope, still nothing new there either. He slammed it shut, and ran a hand over his tired face, scratching the stubble on his right cheek. All three of them had started in on the research the second they had woken up in their motel room. It was now pressing on to the afternoon, and still, they were empty handed.

Dean's eyes fell towards his brother, who, like him, had been diving into everything they could find on how to kill this demon. Sam seemed deeply engrossed by whatever website he was browsing while leaning up against the headboard of his bed with his laptop on his lap. Dean's gaze swung to Natalie instead. She was sitting cross legged on the couch, with an old battered copy of the Bible they had borrowed from the library on her lap, concentrating so hard she looked like she was going to start sweating. She was absent mindedly braiding her long dark hair, almost like her hands absolutely had to be doing something even when her brain was otherwise occupied. Dean noticed little frizzy bits popping out the plait, like the slight curl in her hair just couldn't be contained by an ordinary braid. Dean found himself fascinated by it, and begrudgingly allowed himself one brief moment to actually think about this whole situation. Natalie. His _daughter._ He mentally shook his head, still trying to completely wrap his mind around that one. She had dropped into his life, out of the blue- quite literally- and, without entirely meaning to, forced him to think about several things he had never really let himself actively think of before- a family, parental duties, a solid, steady home. Well, to be honest, he had thought about it briefly, when he thought that he may have had another life with a certain dark haired yoga instructor, but had never thought this deeply about it before. Having a kid suddenly intensified everything, threw everything into a new light. Seeing his very own flesh and blood living, breathing, and moving was bewildering, not to mention terrifying. And he already knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wouldn't trade that terror for the world. This girl, without trying to, had somehow wormed her way into his stubborn hunter's heart. _She really didn't have to try,_ he thought to himself. _She always belonged there. She's mine. My baby girl._ The shock of that truth hit him right between the eyes. _Whoa. Holy shit, now I'm having chick flick moments with myself?! Ugh._ He shook his head again and cleared his throat. Natalie's eyes swung up to catch her dad looking at her.

"Did you find anything yet?" he asked, trying to sound robustly masculine and not so much Oprah.

She shook her head. "Not really," she said, flipping another page. "The only thing I can find about cursed children is the story of Abraham and Isaac."

"Isn't that the one where God told the one dude to kill his son?" Dean asked. Natalie nodded.

"Yeah, that's it. God had promised Abraham a son, but then, as an act of obedience, God demanded that he sacrifice the son to Him."

"Wow. Talk about your Indian giver," Dean commented wryly. Natalie snickered, which made Dean smile.

"Anyways, just as Abraham was about to kill Isaac, an angel stopped him, saying that it was only the act of obedience that God required."

"So how does that help us?" he inquired, to which Natalie shrugged.

"I don't think it does- but it's the only thing I've found so far," she said dejectedly. Dean looked back at Sam.

"What about you? Got anything?" he said.

"Well, there's a lot of biblical websites that talk about how to break generational curses-" he began. Dean jumped up and rushed over, interrupting him. He bent down to look at the web page himself.

"Really? Kick ass!" he said. Sam just rolled his eyes at Dean's impetuative nature.

"But it's all about asking forgiveness for the original offense of the first generation," Sam finished, the annoyance clear in his voice.

"The original offense wasn't a sin- I was just giving that Yellow-Eyed bastard what he deserved," Dean said.

"Well, to you, yes. Unfortunately, the demon probably won't see it exactly like that, seeing as how it was his brother and all. And even if it somehow did see that, it won't forgive you. Which is why..."

"It won't work either." Dean stood up, and angrily looked around for which motel room wall could take a punch without collapsing.

"Okay- let's think logically here," Natalie piped up, breaking back into the conversation. "We know that being around me more than likely makes it somewhat vulnerable, and that it acts compulsively when I'm near..." she said. Sam focused his gaze on her, encouraging her to keep going. She furrowed her brow for a second, thinking.

"What if we set up some sort of trap?" she asked.

"A trap?" Dean said gruffly, turning his stare back to her. She chose her next words carefully, knowing her idea had the potential to create a massive bitchy explosion from the both of them.

"We find a warehouse or something- a place far away from people- and we set out bait. When the demon shows up, we ambush it, and send it back to Hell without so much as a how-do-you-do," she offered.

"Nat, we already tried that," Sam said patiently. Just that morning, they had filled her in on all their attempts to gank the demon before she came along, including the ambush that had almost worked before the demon turned tail.

She bit her lip at him calling her "Nat"- _oh boy, if he only knew about that little annoying habit he's going to pick up. At least he hasn't started in with the nickname yet,_ she thought- and gave him her patented smug grin in response to his statement.

"But you didn't have the right bait before," she quipped. Sam's eyes widened as her plan sunk in.

"You want to be the bait," he said flatly. She gave the classic Winchester shrug, indicating that in her mind, it was all in a day's work.

"Nope." Dean's voice cut through the conversation, causing both of them to look at him. "Not gonna happen." He stood glaring at her, his hands on his hips like he meant business. Natalie gave him an exasperated look.

"Dad-" she began.

"I said, No."

"Think about it. The ambush almost worked before-"

"What part of "no" aren't you getting?"

"And we know that the demon can't help but try to attack me-"

"You're really not helping your case, you know that?"

"But if we just-"

"Natalie," he said, raising his voice and looking her dead in the eye. She instantly fell silent, clamping her lips together over the words that were threatening to spill out of her mouth. _Hmmm,_ Dean thought to himself. _Remember this look for the future. It makes her shut her trap._ And he was right- she knew that look way too well. Another word out of her and she knew she could kiss her sorry ass goodbye. She lowered her head, defeated. But before Dean could say anything else, Sam spoke up.

"Dean," he began quietly. He pushed his laptop to the side, stood up, and walked over to his brother, trying to make him to look up. Dean silently refused to move. Sam sighed, and plunged ahead anyways.

"You know she's right," he said gently.

"Sammy," Dean growled in his low tones, the threat clear in his voice, his narrowed eyes not moving.

"C'mon, dude. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's the wrong choice," Sam said. Dean finally turned his head to look Sam in the eye. His icy glare didn't stop Sam the way it stopped Natalie, which made Dean even more frustrated. "She's right- if we can lure the demon back with her, we set up the trap and attack it from both sides."

"We still don't know how to make it vulnerable enough to blow it away," Dean argued hotly. Sam searched for the right retort, but eventually just threw up his hands.

"Then we just trap it for now. Make sure it can't come after us until we do figure out how to kill it," he said. Natalie lifted her head, her eyes roving back to them, seeing a light at the end of this tunnel. Her uncle had always been a miracle worker when it came to talking Dean into something he didn't really want to do.

"We can create a devil's trap, salt around the perimeter, holy water puddles, I mean, the works," Sam continued. A muscle twitched in Dean's jaw. "She'll be perfectly safe-"

"By giving the demon the chance to use her as a CHEW TOY?!" Dean thundered back. Sam put his hands up to calm his big brother down.

"We'll be right there watching its every move, and Natalie's been training as a hunter her whole life." At that, Dean broke away and turned his back to both of them, but didn't walk out of the room. Sam took at as a sign that he was listening, even if it was reluctantly. "If we don't at least try this- stop this thing in its tracks, right here, right now- she'll never be safe." Sam let those words hang in the air. He knew that Dean was beefing out into his overprotective He-Man mode, and the only way to get him to come to reason was to lay all the cards out on the table and tell it like it was. Sam held his breath- either Dean was going to agree or he wasn't- there was no more argument he could make. A few tense moments of silence later, and Dean let out an angry sigh. Sam and Natalie locked eyes triumphantly- in that second, they both knew they got him. Dean spun around on his heel, facing them.

"Fine. We try this once- my way. And if it doesn't work, this whole booby trap idea is done, end of discussion. You both got me?" he asked forcefully, pointing his finger at his brother first, then his daughter. Sam nodded his acquiescence. Natalie twisted her mouth, as usual, to hide her delighted grin.

"Yes, sir," she said, jumping up off the couch. Finally, some action.

"Good," Dean said, shaking his arms like he was trying to get rid of the unpleasantness of the plan. He started calming down. He was ready to get his head in the game.

"I think there were some old buildings close to the interstate when we pulled in here. We could probably set up something there," Sam commented, pulling on his worn brown jacket. "They were located near the downtown area."

"Well, then I'll just have to bring the uptown funk," Dean said smarmily, the boastful twinkle returning to his eye. Natalie looked at him in disbelief.

"Seriously?" she said. "The Uptown Funk?"

Dean shrugged. "Don't believe me? Just watch."

Natalie snorted again. "You have got to be kidding me!"

"What?" Dean asked.

"The song?"

"What song?"

Natalie thought for a minute, then slapped herself in the forehead. "Oh that's right. That song hasn't come out yet." She looked at Dean and just shook her head, chuckling. "Man, when you know the future, there's irony _everywhere._ "

About a half hour later, the Impala pulled up in front of an old crumbling textile factory on the outskirts of the dull, beige town. They stopped at the chain link gates attached to the fence, which seemed to be surrounding the entire property. The rusting gates were fastened by a single padlock. The whole fence had chunks of the linking wires missing or torn down, so it seemed like overkill to have a padlock on the gate, but it was probably for the insurance or something, Natalie reasoned to herself. She looked around from the backseat of the car. There seemed to be a guard station, but it was a good 200 feet from the locked entrance to the left. This just kept getting better and better.

"Hey," she said, tapping Dean on the shoulder and pointing. "Check it out. Should we go over and see if there's actually a guard for this crap hole?"

In response, he opened the car door and stood up, moving over to let Natalie open her side and scramble out. Sam followed suit, shutting his door carefully. Dean was already tense over this whole plan, and he didn't want to rattle his brother's cage further by slamming the door shut on Baby. He walked around the car to the other two, and the three of them began trudging towards the guard station, which, upon further inspection, looked similar to a rundown shack from the 1800s with a window clumsily built into the door.

"What freaking good does it do to have a guard station so far away from the stupid entrance?" Dean grumbled. He narrowed his eyes. He could make out someone sitting at the window, but couldn't really distinguish any facial features. However, the closer they got, the faster he walked. It was a young woman sitting behind the window. As they got closer, he noticed there wasn't actually a window. It seemed the genius who built the falling apart lean-to forgot to put the glass in the hole in the door. That was just a speck in Dean's train of thought at the moment, though. The rather attractive woman sitting behind the hole in the door was probably mid twenties, with black hair trimmed into a pixie cut. And she was cute. Really cute. And her shirt front was cut really deep. Dean's _I'm sexy and I know it_ grin automatically spread across his face, and he picked up a little bounce in his step as Sam and Natalie tried to keep up. Sam actually had to lengthen his strides, and poor Natalie was almost speed walking.

"Seriously?!" she hissed, as they were close enough for the female guard to hear. Dean ignored her, and sauntered up to the window. He casually pulled out his fake ID badge, and flashed it at the woman. Her dark blue eyes scanned the badge, and then the face that went with it. She sat up a little straighter in her dilapidated chair. She clearly liked what she saw.

"Can I help you?" she practically purred. Natalie rolled her eyes in disgust. Sam subtlety elbowed her- she knew that they all had to play their roles when they were on a case. But that didn't mean she had to like it.

"You sure can," Dean drawled back, and scanned her bulging chest for a name badge. "Marielle," he said, tearing his gaze away from her twin peaks and flashing his pearly whites. Natalie made an enormous effort to keep her lunch down. "We're the county fire marshals, supposed to be checking out the old textile factory."

"Really? Is someone interested in buying it or something?" Miss Blue Eyes asked innocently. _What an idiot,_ Natalie thought. _One look at this place and all it's good for is a demon graveyard._ Sick of her dad's goo-goo eyes, Natalie jumped in.

"Yes, actually. We're just inspecting it to make sure that not _everything_ here is condemnable," she said, straight-forward, hoping this bimbo would catch the subtle dig. Which, of course, she didn't. Instead, she looked inquisitively around Dean and saw Natalie.

"Aren't you a little young to be a fire marshal?" she asked, confusion in her bubble gum voice. Before Natalie could speak, however, Dean stepped back in front of her.

"Yeah, she's an intern, first day," he said, then turned around and leaned down into Natalie's face. "I got this, kiddo, don't worry," he said patronizingly, scrubbing his hand on the top of her head like she was five, and turned back around to Marielle. Natalie's eyes went wide. She _hated_ being made to look like a stupid, know-nothing kid. She knew he was just showing off for Tits & Ass here, but that didn't quell the tide of rage rising in her. A split second before she lunged forward to knock Miss Blue Eyes into next year, Sam cleared his throat knowingly, shooting her a sideways glance. Natalie managed to stop her feet from charging. She bunched up her fists so tight she thought her knuckles might split out of their skin, but kept her face impassive. She even managed to give Old Blue an apologetic smile, which was immediately returned with a display of unnaturally white teeth. _She's probably been drinking bleach. Accounts for the lack of brains,_ Natalie thought nastily.

Sam stepped up towards the window, wanting to move things along before someone ended up on the floor. Dean seemed completely oblivious to the hurricane he had just started, so as usual, it was up to Sam to keep things running smoothly.

"Is there any way you can let us in? We should be done with the inspection and out of your hair in a couple hours," he said. Marielle managed to tear her gaze away from Dean just long enough to see Sam. She nodded furiously, eager to please.

"Oh, yeah! Absolutely!" she said, gathering up a tiny ring of keys, and pushing the door open. "Follow me," she said seductively to only Dean, as if Sam and Natalie had suddenly disappeared. She brushed past them both, Dean right on her heels.

"With pleasure," he said jauntingly, staring at the tight black pants she was sporting. Sam looked down at Natalie, who was still about to blow. Since Marielle clearly didn't have eyes for anything but Dean, Sam wrapped his arm around his niece and squeezed her shoulder. He felt a little of the fight drain out of her at the gesture, and she looked up at him, gratefulness in her eyes. He squeezed again, giving her a smile. They fell in behind TweedleDean and TweedleDumbo.

When they reached the gate, Marielle had unlocked the single padlock and pushed the gate open. She then turned around and flashed her over white smile at Dean again, who lapped up the attention like a kitten with a bowl of milk.

"Let me know if I can do anything else for you, m'kay?" she said, arching her back to accentuate her features.

"Most definitely," Dean said, bobbing his eyebrows at her. Marielle turned away then, and began walking back towards the guard station. Dean leaned up against Baby and watched that tight little butt walk away in those skinny pants. He was practically drooling. When Natalie was sure that the bimbo was out of earshot, she marched over to Dean and decked him in the arm. For being so little, she was surprisingly strong.

"Ouch! What the hell?" he complained, snapping out of his bimbo trance, and rubbing his arm where she had landed the solid blow. _Damn, that hurt a lot more than it should have,_ he thought. Natalie narrowed her eyes at him.

"That's not Mom," she growled.

"Are you sure?" he asked longingly, his gaze wandering back to the guard. Natalie cocked her fist back again, and he capitulated.

"Okay, okay! Geez."

Dean opened her door and let her crawl in the back seat. She plopped down, and crossed her arms, fury still etched on her face. When he turned to shut the car door, he surreptitiously tried to catch one more glimpse of Marielle, but she was too far away. He sighed, and climbed back in behind the wheel.

Much, much later that night, they returned to the warehouse. Natalie made short work of the padlock. Much to her delight, and Dean's disappointment, Marielle wasn't at the guard station. In fact, no one was. She couldn't help but comment on it as they all made their way into the warehouse.

"Just goes to show the level of genius around here. Full time guard during daylight, no one watching it at night. Not that Old Blue Eyes could have done much more than flash her...teeth...at any intruders," she commented dryly. Dean threw her a look, which she returned with his own faux-charming smile before flouncing off into the open room littered with old crates that had once held skeins of fabric. _Note to self. In the future, do not let Natalie get away with that smug little grin,_ he thought blackly. Hell, after that punch earlier, he wasn't going to let her get away with it now.

"Let me ask you something," he said casually. She raised her eyebrows in response. "Do I really let you get away with this smart-aleck crap in your time?"

Natalie paused for a second, and the fakey smile faltered. "Well...sometimes...but...not really, no."

"Uh-huh. So what makes you think I'm going to forget this little exchange in the future when you're back on my turf, kid?" he asked, cocking his eyebrow at her. That took her by surprise. She didn't move a muscle, but eventually responded to his query with one of her own.

"Say- have I told you how good you look today? And your hair. Wow. So on-point." God bless him, he tried not to, but couldn't help it. She was just too damn cute. He chuckled under his breath at his daughter's shallow attempt to get out of the hot water, to which she giggled back. The awkward moment dissipated, and they were back to normal.

"Alright, you two," Sam said, pulling them both into the present. It was getting late- the moon was throwing pale blue light into the room through the busted out windows. "Let's go over this again. Natalie," he said, pointing to her. "You will be in the middle of the room, right under the Devil's Trap." Natalie looked up at the 15 foot tall ceiling where they had carefully drawn the charmed circle earlier that day. She nodded to show she was following along.

"Sam and I are going to be behind those crates, there-" Dean took over, pointing to a stack of boxes in the northeast corner of the room, "And there," he said again, swinging his finger around to the southwest corner. "When the demon shows up-"

"I let it get close enough to get inside the circle, and then get my ass out of there," Natalie finished up. Dean nodded once in approval.

"Okay, you two, double check all the salt lines around the windows and walls. I want the only way into this room to be that door," Dean ordered, gesturing to the door they had entered from. "I'm going to make sure the circle is still intact."

He began climbing on the crates they had left stacked up earlier to get to the ceiling. Sam and Natalie quickly checked all the windows and walls in the room, scanning for any breaks in the lines they had put down earlier that day. When they were both satisfied, they turned to watch Dean finish up outlining the Devil's Circle one more time with chalk. He carefully climbed down, and the three of them quickly began disassembling the tower of crates, so the demon's eye wouldn't be drawn to it, and therefore, drawn to the ceiling. Just as they finished moving the last box, a crash resounded outside of the room. All three of them immediately slipped into full-on hunter mode. Dean nodded to Natalie, who silently moved to her position underneath the circle. He pointed two fingers at Sam, then to the crates behind him. Sam slipped off to hide in his assigned spot, and Dean moved to do the same. He had barely made it to his location when he heard the footsteps drawing nearer. He quietly drew his favorite silver .45 and held it at the ready. He had to resist the crazy urge to check to see if Natalie was alright. He stayed silent as the grave, not daring to move.

Natalie had thrust her hands into her pockets, striking a casual stance, even though every instinct inside her was buzzing, projecting every sound and shadow that could mean potential danger. She kept her face stoic, and didn't let her emotions even come close to penetrating the surface. She had been trained way too well to let something like a stupid demon get the best of her.

The demon strode into the room, his gigantic feet smacking loudly on the cement floor. When she got a good look at him, Natalie prayed that the color wasn't draining out of her face. The demon was even larger than she remembered. It was easily as tall as her uncle, which was saying something. His thick neck and bulging forearms were formidable, to say the least. His gigantic black combat boots had to be sized 18 plus. But it was the face which was threatening the grip she had on herself. Those damned yellow eyes seemed to glow like spot lights in the pale blue night, which had suddenly turned icy and dangerous. And he was wearing that ghoulish, horrific smile.

"It's you," he said, stepping a few feet into the room, stopping as his eyes zeroed in on Natalie. "What are you doing here?"

"Did you miss me, kitten?" she said blithely.

"I don't understand. You're not supposed to be here yet. It's not your time."

"Aw, you know me. Can't resist a good fight. Not going to let a little thing like the space time continuum stop me," she said smarmily.

The demon narrowed his eyes at her flippant attitude. He had felt the immense pull that had accompanied all his dealings with the Winchester boys, but this explained why, tonight, the compulsion to find them had nearly driven him insane. His smile grew wider. It was exactly what he wanted all along- punish the father by taking the daughter. He had already waited what seemed like an eternity for this opportunity, and he was not going to look this gift whore in the mouth. His lips split, and he showed his teeth in a smile that came straight from hell's bowels.

For a moment, Natalie thought her knees were going to buckle at the sight of that grin made out of nightmares. _Come on, girl, pull it together,_ she scolded herself. She just shifted her weight instead. The demon paused, and then let out a screaming laugh that shocked her so much, it knocked the wind out of her. He pointed to the Devil's Trap drawn on the ceiling over her head.

"Did you really think that I would be fooled into walking right into your devil's trap, you little brat? The worthless meat bags you call your family already tried that one on me," he hissed at her. She just smirked back.

"Nope. But I figured you'd be stupid enough to walk..." she pointed directly over his head. "...into THAT one." The demon looked up, disbelieving. Sure enough, there was a second Devil's Trap, right over his head, just a few feet into the door. And he was standing in the middle of it. He roared in rage. Dean took that as his cue to come out from his hiding spot, his gun already trained on the evil creature. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Sam copy his actions. They both closed in on the demon, whose furious gaze was sinking to the floor.

"Well, look at what the hell hound dragged in," Dean said, mockingly. The demon tensed his body at the sound of Dean's voice, but didn't look up. "Got yourself caught up this time, didn't you, you freaky son of a bitch?" he continued, unable to stop himself. This thing had been determined to tear apart his family, and he was already set to explode with the cesspool of emotions he'd been dealing with in the last 48 hours. It felt good to release some of the angst by aggravating the crap out of this beast. The demon began shaking uncontrollably.

"No, no..." it moaned. "I've waited too long..."

"Well, you're going to have to wait a while longer, huh, hell boy?" Dean said, tauntingly.

"You took my brother from me," the demon raged.

"Yeah? He took our mom from us, ass wipe."

"I've been waiting too long for the chance to get to the Winchesters!" the demon screamed. "And to be reunited with my brother!"

"Well, then let's get you out of here and onto that happy little family reunion, shall we? Sammy?" Dean called out. Sam put his gun up, and reached for the journal tucked into his jacket. He flipped to the page that had always been earmarked in the book, and began to read.

"Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immude..." Sam cut off suddenly. The cement foundation of the building had begun to shake. Sam knew that wasn't his doing- it was way too early in the exorcism for that kind of thing to be happening. His eyes swung to the demon, whose own tremors had grown more and more pronounced. In fact, the more the demon shook, the wilder the ground rocked, as if he was drawing power from the earth itself. A great bolt of black lighting suddenly cracked the cement under the demon's feet, shooting up from the floor. It seemed to draw itself into the demon's left fist with a deafening sizzle of electricity. A second one followed, making a horrendous screech as the cement was once again ripped apart as if it were no more than play-dough. The demon stood up straight. Snaps and cracks of dark energy radiated directly from the earth into both of its massive arms.

"Sam! What the hell is happening?" Dean yelled, not daring to take his eyes off the lightning rod from Hades.

"I don't know!" Sam hollered back at him, completely at a loss. He had never seen anything like this before.

"It's drawing up hellfire!" Natalie shrieked. Sam broke his gaze from the streaming black energy radiating from the ground to look at her. Just as he was opening his mouth to say "What?", the crackling bolts of light suddenly became more fluid, as if they were made out of lava. They gave off a pulse of power that silenced everything for a heartbeat. "Hit the deck!" Natalie screamed in the sudden quiet. Sam saw Dean throw himself sideways behind the stack of crates, just as Natalie slammed into the floor and covered her head. He was just a split second too late, however. The demon suddenly thrust his glowing fists upwards, and the ceiling above them began to splinter and snap, as if it was made of wood rather than a solid slab of cement. It rapidly began breaking apart, huge chunks of rock falling all around them. Sam dodged out of the way as a metal girder snapped like a twig and began plummeting down, bringing a rain of dust and dirt down with it. Sam coughed and spluttered, trying to breath in the sudden cloud of pollutants. His watering eyes looked up to see that both Devil's traps had been broken, cracked in half, when suddenly, he was slammed up against the wall. The violent slam knocked out every bit of air from his lungs. He gasped, trying just to breathe, let alone call for help. Natalie suddenly broke through the cloud of dust, coughing herself. She saw her uncle pinned up against the wall, then spun around to face the demon.

"Let him go, you son of a bitch!" she screamed, but by the time the cloud of dust died down, the demon had disappeared. There was a large black steaming crater where he had been standing just a moment ago. Natalie's mind spun out- did the demon just blow himself up? A strangling breath from Sam reminded her that no, the demon was still somewhere in this room. Her eyes darted wildly, searching for it. She caught sight of Dean picking himself up off the floor, but he was the only thing she could see moving that wasn't rubble.

"Dad! It's still in the room!" she yelled to him. Dean immediately began the same scan of the room that she was doing. His eyes suddenly trained on a spot right behind her.

"Down!" he bellowed. For the second time in less than 20 seconds, Natalie hit the deck, and felt her lower lip split as she connected with the floor. Dean aimed and fired, his eyes steely, entirely focused on the kill. Natalie listened to the shots ricocheting off the walls, but she didn't hear them hit anything else. She flipped over onto her back, just in time to see a large black boot about 2 feet from her face. She rolled out of the way, as fast as she could, chunks of stone and metal crushing into her skin. She winced as she heard the large foot slam into the concrete, where her head had been not a moment before. She picked herself up as quickly as she could, brushing away the pebbles of granite that had lodged themselves into her arms, and began sprinting towards her father, who was covering her escape with a volley of gunshots. Three of the bullets hit the demon squarely in the chest, but it didn't seem to make a dent. The demon began stalking towards them, death in its sickeningly yellow eyes.

"Dad, it's still not vulnerable!" Natalie shrieked, reaching Dean's side, brushing the back of her hand across her bleeding lip.

"Yeah, I noticed!" Dean emptied his clip into the creature, but it just kept stalking forward. He threw the gun to the side and drew out his backup. He didn't fire however- what was the point? The two of them gazed in horror as the demon not only kept sanguinely walking towards them, but started laughing. Natalie felt her skin turn to ice. How the hell were they going to kill this damn thing?

The demon suddenly stopped next to a large pile of crates. It flicked its finger at one of the wooden boxes, and it suddenly hurled through the air at Dean. He barely dodged in time, causing the crate to explode on the wall behind him with all the force of the power behind the throw. The demon continued to laugh maddingly, and sent another crate flying towards Dean, which he, once again, was miraculously able to avoid.

"Don't you understand, boy? You can't beat me! The only thing that can take me down IS the girl!" he roared triumphantly. In response, Natalie drew her gun as fast as lighting, and shot the demon right in the eye. He looked stunned for a minute, but then simply reached up and plucked the bullet from his eye socket. He flicked it away as casually as a fly.

"Right location, wrong ingredients, you little bitch," he snarled at her.

Natalie's brain spun into overdrive. What the hell did that mean? A sudden synapse in her brain fired, triggering her think tank, and she froze.

"Natalie, get behind me," Dean growled, picking himself up off the floor, his eyes still focused on the demon. "Natalie!" he barked again when he didn't hear her move, but she wasn't paying attention to him. All of the sudden, the pieces clicked into place.

They knew that the demon was vulnerable to Natalie- the stupid piece of crap had just confirmed it. But it wasn't her presence it was vulnerable to- it was actually her, her physical body. Just as God asked Abraham to give Isaac's physical body to Him, the demon wanted her physical body too. No, no- there had to be another way- God didn't actually make Abraham give up his son. Natalie's mind wildly flipped through its catalogues of information, desperately looking for the final piece of the puzzle. An image of the Colt surfaced in her mind, and she understood immediately. It wasn't the actual GUN that killed the demon- it was the BULLETS inside the gun, and then, inside the demon, that had finished him off. She thought about what her dad had said earlier- about the demon using her for a chew toy. She knew what she had to do.

In the span of the 2.8 seconds it took her to put the final pieces together, Dean nearly lost his shit. "NATALIE!" he shouted at her. "I SAID GET BEHIND ME!"

She reached up, and pulled a few stray hairs from her head, clutching them tightly in her right hand. She looked at her father and said something she had never said in her entire life. "No, sir."

Before Dean could react, she took off, running full tilt towards the demon. "No!" Dean cried, reaching out his hand to grab her, but she was too fast. She picked up speed, and the demon barked a laugh in disbelief. This tiny little insignificant human thought she could- what- tackle him? He threw his head back, delighting in the absurdity of the moment, and gave himself over to his evil laughter, which was his fatal mistake. At that moment, Natalie's agility came to a full head. She jumped onto the crate nearest to the demon, and launched herself high into the air, directly at the psychotic beast. With a warrior's cry, she pulled her powerful right fist back, and shoved it down his throat as far as she could.

The demon was caught completely by surprise at the arm suddenly lodged in his windpipe. Its laughter cut off. The human body that the creature inhabited was not built to withstand such a violent invasion. It began choking and coughing, finally spewing up a fountain of blood that covered the girl, who was still hanging out of his mouth. Natalie managed to release her hand inside the creature, despite the fact that she was being swung around like a lasso, and the completely disgusting feeling of having her arm lodged in someone's insides. But that moment when she opened her hand into the body of the creature, it began flickering, freezing and jumping, like a scratched DVD. She knew instinctively what that meant.

"Dad! It's vulnerable! Shoot it in the eye!" she screamed as the demon wildly flailed her around. Dean pulled the gun back into position, but the demon was still thrashing around too much.

"I can't get a bead on it!" he shouted. Natalie summoned all her strength, and, grasping a handful of the demon's insides, twisted. The creature screamed in pain- at least, it would have if Natalie's arm hadn't ripped through its vocal cords. It was enough, however, to get the demon to stop moving.

"Now, Dad! Get it now!" she yelled as she felt the demon freeze in her fist. She squeezed tighter, intensifying the torture. Dean brought the gun up, but Natalie was way too close to its eye for Dean to try. If the demon began flailing again, one poorly timed shot and he would kill her.

"I can't! I might hit you!"

"You're not going to hit me, just take the sho-"

Natalie's voice was drowned out by a scream. A scream that came from her. In horror, Dean watched as Natalie threw her head back in excruciating pain. Her screaming intensified. She rolled her head around on her neck, when suddenly, it snapped back into place, and stared directly into Dean's wide eyes. To his absolute horror, he saw that her eyes had a sickening yellow glow. His insides turned into molten lead.

For a life shattering moment, Dean knew the demon had won. Of course, he could end it, right now. One squeeze of the trigger, and the demon would be history. But that would mean Natalie was history too. The very reason he was fighting so hard in the first place. What was left of his tattered heart dropped through his feet. He just couldn't do it. "Natalie-" he said in a mangled whisper, choking on emotion. His gun hand dropped to his side. He wanted to reach out to her, but he found he simply couldn't move. The idea of losing her- especially like this- paralyzed him. He couldn't stop this demon. He couldn't save his daughter. He had never felt so worthless in his entire life. The demon sneered at him.

"Brave little girl you've got here, you piece of filth. I'm going to have so much fun taking her," it hissed at Dean, in what was Natalie's voice, but so horribly not Natalie's voice. Adrenaline rushed into his body at the demon's taunting words, and he saw red. Still unable to move, the veil of fury that slipped over his eyes caused him to start looking for his opening- for the moment when he could end this whole thing without destroying his child. He didn't know where the hell it was going to come from, but now he was fired up.

The demon saw the new determination in Dean's eyes, and began laughing again. Trust a Winchester to fight to the death and beyond. But there was no way out. The demon knew as well as Dean did that he could never kill Natalie. He had won. He had finally triumphed. But in its ecstasy of finally having revenge on the Winchesters, it had forgotten the fiery heart of the being it now possessed.

From inside of her own trapped mind, Natalie started to come around. Just as she had gained control over the demon's movements before it invaded her, she seized onto the nearest part of herself that she could grasp and held on for dear life. She forced the demon to move her eyes towards Dean, to make sure he wasn't hurt. When she saw him, she understood immediately. She knew exactly what was going through his head, and she knew that, even if the rest of the world's existence depended on him shooting her, he wouldn't. Well, he wasn't going to have to make that choice. Not on her damn watch.

With sheer will power, Natalie forced the demon out of her body and back into the muscled disaster at the end of her arm, heaving as she did so. The demon resisted violently, but hell hath no fury like a woman possessed. She threw the remnants of the despicable hell beast back into the hulking chunk of doomed flesh that she was still elbow deep in. The demon began assaulting her like a battering ram, trying to get back inside her head. Even though she had already bested him once. Natalie knew she couldn't keep the demon at bay for longer than a few seconds. She looked at Dean desperately. He saw that her eyes had lost the glassy yellow glare. Her eyes- _his eyes_ \- were their beautiful, whole green again. The demon was out of her.

"Daddy!" she screamed.

That was all it took.

Dean's world completely melded into focus on this singular moment. The adrenaline rushing through his veins now flowed through him in a whole new and deadly wave. All else ceased to exist except the sound of his baby girl's cry. She needed him. Nothing else mattered. He raised his gun, and with one single shot, hit the demon right in the eye, shattering half of its face. What was left of the creature began sparking all over, flashing golden light that burned through its skin. As the light began taking over the demon's body, it arched its back, wailing. He suddenly fell backwards with a loud thud, taking Natalie straight down to the floor with him. Once the demon hit the ground, the rest of the world rushed back in to Dean's conscious. He saw Sam slide down the wall, gasping for air, but alive.

"Sam? Are you alright?" Dean hollered.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Sam shouted back. He picked himself up off the ground, still heaving, but began running towards them immediately. "Is Natalie okay?" he yelled, reaching them within seconds. Dean looked at Natalie, crumpled on the ground, her arm still deep in the dead man's throat. He immediately went to her, checking to see that she was still breathing. She was, but just barely.

"Help me!" Dean cried to his brother. He grabbed Natalie under the arms, and Sam took the mangled corpse by the shoulders. With a great heaving tug, they managed to pull her out of the shattered face. The glassy eyes, or at least the one that was still remaining, was no longer yellow. Dean dragged her as far away from the body as he could before he collapsed from the overexertion. Sam kept up pace with them, reaching for Natalie's wrist to check for a pulse as Dean cradled her in his arms.

"Come on, come on," Dean muttered, gently patting her face, trying to get her to come to. "C'mon kiddo, wake up." With a sudden gasp, she opened her eyes. Both Sam and Dean heaved a sigh of relief. Dean propped her head up a bit higher so she could breathe easier. She blinked for a second, squeezing her eyes together as all the pain that accompanied consciousness flooded back into her system. She reached out and grabbed Sam's wrist, holding on for dear life, and looked into Dean's face.

"We got him?" she asked, still breathing heavily.

"Yeah, kiddo, we got him," Dean answered, his arms tightening around her. She nodded once in relief, her eyes closing for a moment, then they popped open and sought his face again.

"Sorry for disobeying you," she said breathlessly. Dean just stared incredulously at her. She grinned that familiar cocky grin, and once again, he couldn't help himself. He chuckled under his breath at the ridiculousness of her statement.

"You know, you nearly gave me a heart attack when you did that," he said, half scolding her.

"My bad."

"Yeah, your bad." He and Sam both helped her to get up off the dirty, broken, and blood soaked floor. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

The next morning, they were heading back to the park where Cas had produced Natalie. She had explained to them that the deal with Castiel had lasted only 3 days, and that he was expecting her right back promptly where he dropped her off.

"Although I should have known that he literally meant, DROP me off. I mean, it is Cas, after all," she said dryly. Sam and Dean had just snickered at that comment, knowing it to be all too true, when a rush of wind blew the leaves up around them. Natalie looked off in the distance- and sure enough, there he was, his hands thrust into the pockets of his tan trench coat, waiting for her. She gave him her usual half smile, which he actually returned. She loved it when Cas smiled, which was way too rare in her opinion, and she made it a point to notice things like that. She turned back to face the two men standing beside her.

"Well, I guess this is it," she said. Sam shuffled his feet. Even though he knew she needed to return to her own time, that she didn't belong here, it was still difficult to see her go. He had really grown to love her, even in just 3 days. She noticed his sad eyes, and reached out to him. "Hey," she said, taking his hands. "It's not like we're not going to see each other again. Before you know it, you'll be so sick of me that you'll wish sending me back with Cas is an option," she joked. Sam laughed at that one, and pulled her into a hug. She returned it warmly, and looked up into her uncle's face.

"You watch that lying, missy," he said in a mock stern voice, then smiled. She snorted in response.

"Yeah, yeah," she said dismissively, before squeezing him once more. He stepped away to give father and daughter some privacy for their goodbyes. He knew his brother wouldn't appreciate being watched during such a vulnerable moment. He wandered away, tucking his hands into his pockets as he walked.

Dean looked off towards the horizon, and, squinting in the sunlight, turned his face back to her. "You know, I'm probably not going to be too happy with you when you get home," he commented stoically. She twisted her mouth in amusement, and nodded in agreement.

"You are going to bust my ass seven ways to Sunday for this one," she said with a sigh. He shrugged.

"Well, you should have listened to what I will be telling you to do," he said, completely straight faced. She snorted a laugh again, making his stoic veneer crack. He smiled warmly at her. She took that as a good sign for the future, and stepped closer to him, reaching up to put her palms flat on his chest.

"Well, when I DO get home, you need to remember a couple things," she said. She held up one finger. "I did it to save our family." She held up two fingers. "I did NOT get hurt."

He gave her a look that said _Seriously?_ She sighed and flexed her sore arm, but stuck to her guns. "At least, not permanently." She held up three fingers. "And- and this is the most important- that you loooooooooooooooooove me," she said, rolling her head around and making a funny face as she held out the word 'love', which made Dean chortle. "So please don't take away my Fireflight," she said, putting on her best puppy dog eyes and begging. Dean's face furrowed with confusion.

"What's a Fireflight?" he asked. Natalie's eyes grew wide.

"Oh my god. I cannot BELIEVE I didn't tell you!" she squealed. But as she took another breath, a loud crack of thunder resounded. She turned, annoyed, to look at Cas. "Oh, come on!" she hollered at him. Castiel simply continued staring at her. She sighed, and turned back to Dean.

"Well, I can't tell you, but just trust me Dad, your future is going to ROCK," she said. He laughed at that one, and then grew calm as he watched her struggle with an emotion that she was obviously trying to keep in check. She finally looked straight into his eyes.

"I love you, Daddy," she said, simply.

"I love you too, Baby Girl," he said back. Natalie's eyes widened in disbelief. She hadn't told him that that was his nickname for her- for as long as she could remember. He just called her that, out of pure instinct. She knew her dad hated chick flick moments, but she couldn't hold it back this time. She gave him a full fledged smile.

And for a split second, Dean's world stopped for all eternity.

It would take years for him to accurately put into words the sanctity of that moment. He even had a hard time explaining it to himself. When he looked at his daughter's real, unbridled and unapologetic smile for the first time ever, it was like everything good and wonderful that was to be had in the entire universe rushed through him in a singular moment. He recalled every blue sky, every cloudless day, every fantastic feeling that could ever be felt. It was like bathing in sunshine that was made of pie, like roaring down the highway in his Impala with the windows down and AC/DC playing live on a flatbed behind him, like the fleeting moments of family and peace that always seemed to slip through his grasp. But, looking at her smile, for the first time, Dean believed that maybe, just maybe, he could still find that peace, someday.

Natalie threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, hard. He hugged her back, picking her up off the ground. He had to keep reminding himself that he would be seeing her again, because he would be double dog damned if he was going to let his eyeballs start leaking right now. He finally set her down on the ground, and she placed a kiss on his cheek before she untangled her arms from his neck. One more brief flash of her smile, and it was over. She knew it was time. Natalie turned and began walking towards Cas without looking back. Sam slowly crossed next to his big brother, as they both watched this little girl, who had rocked their world completely, walk away.

"You okay?" he asked, his voice full of concern. Dean smiled.

"Yeah. I'm great," he said, and he meant it.

Natalie walked up to Castiel, eyeing him carefully. "Okay," she finally said. "So on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst- how much trouble am I in for when I get home?" she asked, a bit of nervousness creeping into her voice. Cas thought for a moment, then nodded to himself as if he were weighing his words.

"On a scale of one to ten, I'd say you're about at an eighty-two."

Natalie sighed- she was afraid of that. Trust Cas to get the hang of sarcasm NOW. She turned back to Dean and yelled, "Just remember that you loooooooooooove me!"

Dean just shook his head, laughing. He watched Cas wrap his arms around his Baby Girl, and then they both disappeared.

Natalie landed with a thump back on the front lawn of her house. Cas had apparently had pity on her after all, giving her a chance to collect herself before she faced her father. Dean may have been perfectly fine when she'd left the past, but he had had several years to burn through all the touchy feely feels, so she wasn't entirely sure that he would still be feeling as magnanimous when she returned. Before she really had a chance to compose herself though, the front door flung open. Her uncle was standing there- completely whole and undamaged, and looking just a bit more gray than the uncle she had left in the past. "Uncle Sam," she exclaimed, her voice breaking with emotion.

"Natalie!" Sam breathed, and bounded down the steps towards her. He swept her up into a bear hug, which she gladly returned.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she said, the relief in her voice palpable.

"I'm glad you're okay too, Bug," he said. She pushed away from him, half playful, half annoyed.

"You know, you didn't call me that stupid nickname in the past."

He shrugged and smiled. "That was then, this is now."

She just rolled her eyes. Then she asked a question that had been nagging her for a day or so.

"Okay, so if I went back in time, why didn't you guys ever tell me? Why did Dad argue with me on fighting the demon if he knew that we were going to win?"

Sam laughed and squeezed her shoulders. "That's because we DIDN'T know."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her forehead furrowing in confusion.

"It was a part of the deal Cas never told you about it," he explained. "He explained it to us after he took you to the past. We wouldn't remember you in our past if you didn't succeed."

"So it would have been like I was never there at all?" she asked.

"Pretty much. It was his way of protecting you. However, it could have potentially had side effects, which he declined to tell you about."

"Like what?"

"Well, in spite of the fact that we wouldn't remember you being there, you still would have altered the space time continuum. And there was no way of telling what you would have altered in the past to come back to in our time." Sam chuckled. "You should have seen your Dad when Cas told him that. His face turned bright purple."

"Aw, crap," she whimpered, not finding it nearly as funny as Sam did. Just at that moment, the front door flung open again, and there was her father, also looking a bit grayer than she had just left him. He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at her. Sheepishly, she turned towards him, plunging her hands into her pockets and put on her best puppy dog eyes.

"Hi, Daddy," she said in her best little girl voice. He didn't speak. Her heart stopped. Silent Dean was not good.

"Well, Natalie, you were right," he said finally, in his low, growling way. She was taken aback. That was the LAST thing she expected to hear out of his mouth.

"I was?" she said, looking utterly bewildered.

"Uh-huh. If I remember correctly," Dean said, pretending to think about it, "I am going to bust your ass seven ways to Sunday." He jerked his thumb behind him, indicating that she should get into the house, post-haste. She sighed heavily.

"Yes, sir." She began slowly climbing the steps, keeping her eyes training down so he wouldn't see the smirk on her face. If he was actually talking to her, she knew there was a pretty good chance that she would at least see the light of day again before she hit 40. As she was passing by him in the doorway, she took a chance and looked up at him.

"Just remember that you looooooooooooooooooove me," she said, the charm still in her voice, her smile threatening to break through. She made her way to the living room sofa and plopped down. Dean watched her go with a twinkle in his eye.

"You're damn right I do," he whispered back.

The End

 **Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end! If you like Natalie, and want to read more about her, check out my new series entitled "Where Do We Go Now". Thank you so much to my SPN family!**


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